Stats and Facts

Eat fish to stop stroke, math problems for bipolar teens, pregnant women who drink.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on February 04, 2003

S omething—Anything!—Fishy

It takes only one to three seafood meals a month to cut the risk of stroke by 40 percent for men. And any fish, from MacDonald's fish fillet to fresh sushi, will do it, find Harvard researchers. It's the omega-3 fatty acids.

Shrinking Centerfolds

Centerfold models are becoming more androgynous, with smaller hips and busts, researchers find in a study of Playboy centerfolds from 1953 to 2001. Models continue to have a lower body mass index than average woman.

15%

percentage of pregnant women who drink alcohol. Fortunately, say University of Michigan researchers, most fall into the low-risk category of one drink or less per week. But 3% were high-risk drinkers, consuming more than one drink a week or having a drinking binge at some point during pregnancy.

Math Problems

Teens with bipolar disorder, even in remission, may have an especially hard time with math, find scientists in Nova Scotia. They fared significantly worse on the math part of standard academic tests than teens with unipolar depression and those with no psychiatric history. It also took them longer to do the math. It's not that they lack computational ability; rather, their higher math reasoning skills are impaired.